The present invention relates generally to electronic music apparatus, methods and programs capable of displaying various information, such as lyrics, in response to reproduction of performance data. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved electronic music apparatus, method and program which allow a user to readily select a user-created text data file containing various information. The present invention also relates to an improved electronic music apparatus, method and program which, during reproduction of performance data, can display lyrics based on a lyrics data file and display various information based on a user-created text file while switching as necessary between the lyrics and the text-file information.
Apparatus have been known which are constructed to prestore lyrics data along with performance data forming a basis of an automatic performance and display lyrics of a music piece, to be automatically performed by reproduction of the performance data, on the basis of the lyrics data. One example of such apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-9-152876 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,808,223. In the disclosed apparatus, lyrics data are embedded in performance data so that lyrics corresponding to a currently-automatically-performed music piece can be displayed in accordance with reproduction of the performance data. The disclosed apparatus is also constructed to, instead of embedding lyric data in performance data, prepare in advance a lyrics data file separately from a performance file with a same file name, but different file extensions, allocated to both of the files so as to associate the performance data and lyrics data with each other, so that the apparatus can read out lyrics corresponding to a currently-automatically-performed music piece by reading out the lyrics data associated with the currently-reproduced performance data.
However, the prior art publication merely discloses lyrics data for displaying lyrics corresponding to a currently-automatically-performed music piece, and it does not contain any particular disclosure of, or give any particular consideration to, non-lyrics data for displaying various other information than lyrics (e.g., memos about how to operate an electronic music apparatus and how to play music, and what is to be the by a singer on the stage). Thus, it is conceivable to prepare in advance a non-lyrics data file separately from a performance file similarly to the above-mentioned lyrics data file (or previously embed non-lyrics data in performance data), and display for example various other information than lyrics, pertaining to a music piece automatically performed by reproduction of the performance data, on the basis of the prepared non-lyrics data file (or embedded non-lyrics data). However, each conventionally-known lyrics data file is in a dedicated format where combinations of “time data” indicative of timing for displaying individual words and “lyrics event data” indicative of words to be displayed are arranged in time series. Thus, it tends to be very difficult for a user, who is unfamiliar with such a dedicated format, to create a non-lyrics data file (or embed non-lyrics data) with similar arrangements to a lyrics data file using a personal computer or the like. Further, because, in order to associate non-lyrics data with performance data, there is a significant constraint that the non-lyrics data file be assigned a file name having some relationship with a file name assigned to the performance file, the user can not create in advance a non-lyrics data file with a desired file name assigned thereto. Further, the conventional technique could not display various other information than lyrics on a display of the electronic music apparatus although the user so desired; thus, for display of various other information than lyrics, there was no choice but to, for example, take notes of the information on a piece of paper or the like and attach the paper or the like to the electronic music apparatus.